Revisiting UNRIVALED: How the ESPN Doc Re-Animates the Avalanche-Red Wing Rivalry

In an age where sports documentaries abound, ESPN's Unrivaled stands out for the way it is able to provide a fresh perspective on a well-trod topic: the Red Wings-Avalanche blood feud of the late 90s and early aughts

In today's super-saturated world of streaming, there is no shortage of options for the sports fan who wants to extend their consumption beyond live games and into the realm of the documentary.

Whether you want to learn more about Maradona's tumultuous years with Napoli, acquaint yourself with the glamorous world of F1, or re-live Michael Jordan's career in ten-part, excruciating detail, there's an offering for you.

The issue then becomes not so much finding films that cover a topic that interests you enough to kill a couple hours (these exist in spades, no matter how arcane the subject material) but rather discerning which docs are worth watching, even if you're just trying to pass the time.

As soon as you see the subject of the doc is (a) famous, (b) perceived negatively by most people familiar with the events of the documentary, and (c) interviewed, you know straight away that nothing substantive or revelatory or even remotely journalistic will follow.

Some of these are pernicious—laundering the reputations of the powerful in exchange for access and by extension attention.  Here, I'm thinking of features like Netflix's recent four-part Swamp Kings, chronicling the Urban Meyer era of Florida Gator through the tiresome prism of SEC football as religious experience and ignoring most all of the extra-curriculars that made those teams unique while allowing Meyer to dictate a sympathetic narrative of his own journey.

Other docs are less harmful, but they needed more time in the oven to become interesting.  These microwaved affairs scan a little too close to extended SportsCenter segments about games we know the outcomes to to be interesting. 

Two summers ago, ESPN released Unrivaled, re-telling the story of the rivalry that defined the late 90s and early aughts NHL: Red Wings-Avalanche.  It was a documentary, not just one more drip into an endless ocean of content, for three reasons.

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First, it transported viewers out of the present and into a bygone era of hockey, even if the temporal gap between the events of the documentary and its release is only about 20 years.  Second, it offers original perspectives on well-known events.  Third and most importantly, it inter-weaves sports stories with human ones.

In framing he Red Wings teams depicted, Unrivaled emphasizes the Grind Line mentality, starting with Darren McCarty and Kris Draper.  It's not the film ignores or denies those teams' skill and star power (we are introduced to the Russian Five's virtuosity via highlight packages and we hear that the Red Wings were perceived as too soft and skilled for the postseason after losing to the Devils in the 1995 Stanley Cup Final).

Instead, the import of the Russia Five to the Red Wings' rise throughout the 90s has been well documented elsewhere, so by privileging Detroit's fourth line in its re-telling, Unrivaled transports the viewer to a bygone NHL era.

By placing McCarty at the center of the story, we are separated from our present hockey reality in which grinding, fighting types like McCarty exist as campfire stories rather than roster players.  Yet, of course, McCarty is a fitting centerpiece for the story as of course his bludgeoning of Claude Lemieux and subsequent OT winner in the infamous Fight Night at the Joe is probably the high-water mark of the rivalry.  

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Unrivaled couldn't be confused for a SportsCenter highlight pack because games defined by players like these don't seem to exist anymore.  As if the game highlights from the era aren't enough to make this clear, Brian Burke—then the NHL's player safety boss—tells us that any wound requiring fewer than 10 stitches was then considered a "shaving cut."

Of course, prioritizing McCarty and Draper within this story would only work if those players had something new to add to this well-told story, and that's where Unrivaled works best.  From a film-making perspective, its most powerful tool is live footage of McCarty and antagonist Claude Lemieux at a sports bar in Royal Oak.  By bringing together the erstwhile combatants, Unrivaled arrives at a fresh perspective on an evening—March 26, 1997—that has been discussed by Red Wing fans in exhaustive detail for 25 years.

The documentary also uses its interviews to make plain that even with the passage of time, tensions are still beyond a simmer.  This is never clearer than when Draper is asked directly at the outset of the film whether he's forgiven Lemieux.  Draper's response?  

"Um...It seemed like was brought of what he did, but in the end, I quote my good friend Darren McCarty, karma's a b**ch."

Beyond re-living the blow by blow of the Wings-Avs blood feud, Unrivaled peaks in emotional poignancy with the story of Vladimir Konstantinov.  

In the various highlight packages from the early part of the documentary, Konstantinov is nothing short of imperious.  His physicality overwhelms, and he shows more than a little skill with the puck and scoring touch.

On the heels of the '97 triumph, we see footage of Konstantinov and his teammates enjoyed a revelrous golf outing, which we know to be the precursor to tragedy.  On June 13, a limousine carrying Konstantinov, Slava Fetisov, and a team masseuse crashed on Woodward Avenue in Birmingham.  Fetisov escaped with minor injuries, but Konstantinov suffered major head trauma and paralysis.  His NHL career was over.

After reminding us of the ultimate insignificance of sports through a moment in which a championship celebration immediately feels irrelevant, Unrivaled then shows us the power of short to provide some measure of healing.  We see Konstantinov celebrating the 1998 Cup with his teammates on the ice in Washington a year later, his joy apparent even through his injuries.  We later see that Konstantinov's competitive fire still burns via spirited games of Uno with his daughter at the facility where he resides.

So, no, Unrivaled isn't one more piece of content; it's a documentary and a worthwhile one.  It takes a subject near and dear to Red Wing fans and re-animates it with fresh perspectives, the passage of time, and authentic human interest.  This isn't an extended highlight pack of a rivalry.  It's interpretive, informative, and resonant in re-animating what may have been the fiercest rivalry the NHL has ever known.